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Late last month, UL baseball coach Tony Robichaux let Brenn Conrad know just how much he wanted him to always be ready for potential late-game heroics.

Robichaux just had a feeling, and it involved the Lafayette High product who yielded his starting job at second base when back-from-shoulder-surgery Stefan Trosclair was finally ready to play regularly in the field.

“We’ve been working throughout this by pinch-hitting Brenn the last two-and-a-half weeks,” Robichaux said, “because we felt somewhere along the line he could help win a ballgame was for us.”

Sunday was that day.

Conrad’s two-RBI single in the bottom of the eighth inning gave the Ragin’ Cajuns a one-run lead they did not relinquish in a 3-2 Mother’s Day victory over South Alabama at M.L. “Tigue” Moore Field.

The win prevented Sun Belt Conference-leader USA from sweeping the series and clinched an SBC Tournament berth for 31-19 UL, which now sits fourth in the league standings at 15-11.

South Alabama (34-18 overall) is 19-8, Troy is 17-10 and Georgia Southern is 16-11, setting up a tight battle for seeding as this week’s regular season-ending SBC series at UL Monroe awaits UL.

“We’ve got to try to turn ourselves into something and hopefully rally around what has happened, you know?” said Robichaux, whose Cajuns went from enjoying a seven-game win streak to going 1-2 in two straight SBC series, including one at conference cellar-dweller Appalachian State.

“We actually played good baseball,” Robichaux added. “I mean, I know somebody’s gonna go … ‘You lost two out of three,’ but we did a lot of things good.”

In the series’ first two games, though, the Cajuns’ lacked timely hitting. It was there when they needed it most on Sunday, however, especially late.

Davis Knapp gave South Alabama a 1-0 lead with a solo home run to left in the top of the third.

It was Knapp’s first homer this year and just the 10th homer of the season for USA, which had the fewest in the Sun Belt going into the weekend.

The Jaguars made it 2-0 when Knapp doubled and later scored from third on Ben Gann’s squeeze bunt in the fifth.

But Greg Davis doubled and scored on Dylan Butler’s single to cut South Alabama’s lead in half in the bottom of the fifth.

Butler later was thrown out at the plate when a Brian Mills bunt was easily fielded by Jaguars starter Jared Gates, and UL wound up leaving the bases loaded in the fifth.

But Conrad came through when needed in the eighth, driving in Kennon Fontenot and Tyler Girouard.

Fontenot, also pinch-hitting, singled and Girouard walked behind him.

Both advanced on Trosclair’s sacrifice bunt, and Conrad followed two batters later with a two-out single through the right side off a slider on the inside corner from Jaguars reliever Justin Flores.

“Coach Robichaux, he’s been trying to give me pinch-hits pretty much every game that he can – whether somebody is struggling or not,” said Conrad, who did start at third on Saturday. “I think he’s done a pretty good job of that, and I just tried to get as focused as many times as I could for all my pinch-hits.

“And today was a good one,” Conrad added. “I went up as confident as I’ve ever been and got the job done.”

Cajuns closer Dylan Moore worked the ninth for his eighth save of the season, and ended things himself by fielding Knapp’s 1-3 groundout.

UL senior Greg Milhorn (2-1) worked the seventh and eighth to get the win, and allowed just one hit in his first appearance since sustaining a groin injury in a non-conference weekend start almost a month against Jackson State.

“Milhorn coming in and giving us two really rock-solid innings – that helped,” Robichaux said.

LAGNIAPPE: Butler, Davis, Girouard, Milhorn and Evan Powell (who caught Sunday, spelling regular Nick Thurman) were honored on the field prior to the game for Senior Day. … After getting dropped from the 5 hole to the 9 hole, Butler responded by going 2-for-2 with a pair of singles and the one RBI. … UL has a non-conference makeup game scheduled for Tuesday night at Nicholls State. … Gates (4-3) allowed seven hits over 7.0 innings, was on the hook for all three runs and took the loss.